Citations of Coal
by hibari-tan
Summary: A bleak mission with bleak aspects; Allen swaggers through the skeletal ruins of the city in search of no longer Innocence, but his partner. Instead of black locks and sharpened eyes, he can see nothing but dust and coal. Oneshot.


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Yo.

This is my first fic under this account but by no means my first fic. I'm haven't written in a while. It might be nice to do some oneshots. Maybe if I get a good response for this, I'll write a second chapter? That all depends.  
I also came to realize that my iTunes is not suited for dark fic writing. 'Happy Smile Hello!' my ass. Give me T.M.Revolution.

**Warning**. Yu/Allen. Not so much that it takes over the entire story. More like hints of it... quite...blatant hints?

I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are treated like minor deities.

Hibari

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**Citations of Coal**

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**hibari-tan**

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Coal.

Coal.

A black substance. Carbon. Messy. Fragile. Something that falls apart in your fingers. He could recite that much.

He was buried alive in it.

Coal.

One step from being diamond, but someone had chosen otherwise. Losers can't be dreamers.

So dark. So thick.

Coal.

So cold one second. Why in the next was he burning?

He remained pressed to the wall of the dingy, charred street that had seemed to have claimed his partner, although he knew that it would take more than just a stampede to knock _him _out. Not taking his head away from the brick, his sweat a glue, he glanced down the street. The pinprick of light illuminated the cloud of scattered dust - a footstep. A hundred of them.

Until the light flickered to a close.

Coal.

Allen Walker counted his every step through the darkness, gripping his arms in shaking hands following the direction that the speeding Akuma had left, dragging a sore ankle behind him. It was twisted.

A bloodied nose met wall several times as he staggered, not hesitating to slice his fingers through ever body he came across, the scream assured him it could breathe and the sudden crescendo to ungodly volumes assured him it was an Akuma. As he uncurled his fingers from the latest throat, flinching at the sound that scorched his ears, he sniffled, a little sick of all this. He pulled up his coat more and gritted his teeth as he took off again.

Allen Walker had never liked fire. It was a sign of destruction and pain. Something that claimed lives. Atrocious burns and poisoned fumes. And now he was following the smell of it the ashes - those fumes - to try and reconnect with his partner, who had taken no time and spared no hesitation when he shoved him as the horde appeared out of nowhere.

Two meters. That's all the time he had, and he'd pushed Allen.

Allen was so happy and so sad at the same time.

_'Say it.'_

_'No.'_

_'Say it.'_

_'No __way__.'_

In a way, his push was a confession. Allen would, at least, take it as a confession. His confession. He would when he found him at least. And he would find him.

Years of service had made Allen's heart morbid. Assuming the worst was a force of habit. It was a precaution, because in a world of demons, destroyers, men of madness, men of books, men who weren't really men, you had to assume the worse. Because the gritty truth was that it was often the most reliable outcome.

A spark in the coal. Allen headed towards it, grunting out his breath.

Was his partner the one to follow light, is what he wondered.

Would he be there waiting for him?  
Would he have anticipated his movements like Allen was trying to-?

"K-Kanda!"

The light was obstructed by his figure, but the man's identity was still obvious. Midnight strands wisped in the air about him, and they hurried to meet eachother in the gaping, empty courtyard. Kanda was not hunched with pain like Allen. He had lost no height, lost no pride. His uniform appeared a little battered and the band that kept his hair up had been lost in those dark curtains, but his arms were still strong. His bandages were still crisp and his tongue, oh, his tongue was still smoldering.

It appeared that the horrible weight of the suspected loss of a comrade, no, a loved one was heavy on the both of them, and Allen couldn't help but manage a crooked smile as Kanda held his face firm, dominating hands doing what they did best.

And even amongst all this gloom, this darkness, Allen could never have felt any more lost than he was in the heat. The heat that surged though him, gave him drink, the heat that... paused? It grew cold; stone, steel. His tongue engorged him, filled his mouth to nearly the point where Allen's jaw was almost snapping out of place. It stung like metal and the taste was one of soot and gunpowder. Allen's eyes stammered open to see not eyes of blue, but those without colour and pupils that seemed to go on and on in all the wrong ways.

Allen's face furrowed in rage as he reeled back, missing the bullet and crying out in fury. Five sharp, slick digits made their home in this imposter's stomach.

His suspicions were confirmed when the figure let out a screech that the real Kanda would never utter; not even in his death. Even as it fell to the ground, his boot met its body over and over. The boy screamed atrocities at the broken doll; offended, spitting down the poison it had fed him as he beat it's face like clay.

"How _dare _you?! How DARE you, Earl?! You're not Kanda! You're NOT!!"

But why in the end did it still have to look so much like Kanda? Allen descended to both his knees and tearless sobs of frustration, gripping the horribly realistic locks of hair, now glittered with stars of debris.

_'You will both be traveling urgently to Yorkshire.'_

_'Yorkshire?' Kanda had inquired, his hair beaten in to place from his training session - one which a rather frantic Lenalee bearing a particularly heavy clipboard had separated him from. 'Something so urgent so close?'_

_'Precisely.'_

_Allen had originally been in shock that the Supervisor's desk had contained less than half the paperwork it usually did, and even less of that was spilling over to the floor. Rather than disturbing twitches in the eye caused by too much coffee, Komui's eyes were hooded and ringed despite the tower of coffee mugs that took up the remaining space of the desk. Any plans for giant robots were hidden and he looked positively stern. Angry, even._

_'But, Komui,' Allen had started after glancing through a blank file describing their mission. It was very nearly empty, and anything that was in there looked increasingly bleak. 'Haven't we had any reports from Finders? This is certainly the first I've heard of this.'_

_'That is because we sent a group of a dozen out last night.'_

_Both Allen and Kanda leant forward in their seats._

_'It takes no time at all to get to Yorkshire!' Kanda scowled, flicking through the pages of the report again, and Allen could only watch, contained, as he saw his face darken. 'Are they really so useless?! Didn't they give a standing report or an-'_

_'Kanda, the train didn't even make it to the station!' _

_The reply came from one distressed looking Lenalee who had just rushed in to the office carrying a tray laden with more mugs of coffee. Komui drained the first on entry. Meanwhile Kanda, irritated at being snapped at, reluctantly fell in to place. Komui's assistant looked just about ready to throw the tray at him- childhood friend or not._

_'It's probably a trap from the Earl.' Komui admitted a little weakly, eyes down to avoid the shocked glares from both of the boys this time. 'I've never witnessed such a high Akuma concentration...'_

_Sweet smiles would have been wasted, so Allen didn't bother. 'This all seems so rash! If you know it's a trap, then why are we-'_

_'We can't overlook the chances of there being Innocence present.'_

_Allen fell quiet. Kanda did not._

_'Didn't they manage to get __something__ through to us? Anything? Sending us in to something like that with no information at all makes us nothing more than cannon fodder!'_

_'The only form of report we've had has been through long-distance golem to telephone. And the reception was terrible. All broken dialogue. We can't make any sense of it.'_

_Allen passed over the pages to the final, entitled 'Finders' Report, presented by Unknown.' The page contained only five other words in typewriter print._

_Escape.__  
Smoke.__  
Survivors.  
Completely.  
Coal._

Allen had lost his patience at the first Kanda, or rather the insulting attempt to be Kanda. The next three proved to really grind his tolerance, and even with the loss of ability to see Akuma immediately because of a bleeding eye, he hadn't hesitated to smite them down.

The real Kanda had dignity.

He wasn't pathetic like all these.

With a torch lit from a dying fire in one hand and his other invoked in to a claw, Allen walked through this city that he was sure was once brimming with life and industry. The ruins of power plants and mines lay dry. The people lay even more so. There were no roses in their cheeks. Only cinders.

Komui had been right. It had been a trap, and a bloody one at that. Allen was fairly sure that the word 'survivors' in the Finders' report stood for 'no survivors.' Kanda and he had agreed on that pretty early on. There was not a living form in sight. Even spiders had been laid to waste.

These Akuma were strange. Different. Was the Earl just showcasing them? Instead of wearing the skin freely, these Akuma disguised themselves even more so, perhaps hoping that Allen would be so much of a fool not to strike down Kanda?

Allen was not so much of a fool, though unsuspecting Finders might have been caught unawares. Allen silently shed a prayer for them.

Allen did not know what the Earl's trap was attempting to capture, and by the looks of these poorly assembled assassination attempts, the answer was probably nothing. It was probably just a little game to stir up trouble and take down as many exorcists as he could.

That, or just to scare them.

Allen felt more and more repulsed by the second, leaving the remains of a sixth Kanda in the dust, looking over it's shoulder as the tall, beautiful yet shattered man shrunk in to the Akuma's true form, it's true skin before once again, crumbling, only this time in to dirt.

"Sickening." Allen spat.

They had also realized early on when they were still together that the word escape stood for 'no escape'. The walls of the entrance had caved in and seemed to go on forever. Kanda was confident that it was an illusion that was simply to be broken, though they couldn't do anything in the dark. The pollution that had collected in the sky when the factories were still operational had clouded the sun. There was no light. Only fire.

_Kanda and Allen had been shooed quickly out of the office to 'get to it.' Both of them were still a little flustered about the speed of it, and Allen couldn't pass the feeling in the pit of his stomach off as hunger._

_'Well...'_

_Kanda looked down at Allen, expectantly. Allen smiled up at him._

_'...At least we're together?'_

Allen's claw was brandished at the latest Kanda-look-alike that had appeared out of the shadows, though he had stopped the thrust towards his stomach, looking at him curiously.

This one, he noticed, did not have black, whiteless eyes. They were reflected with confusion. They were the most brilliant shade of blue.

Though with this, Allen was still not convinced and he flourished his Innocence in its face, demanding loudly that he speak up.

The Kanda remained quiet for a second, before proclaiming equally as loudly, "_You're _an _idiot_."

"Aah!" Allen could not have been happier to have been insulted and retracted the claw, though he could have done without being picked up and thrown without a word or warning. "K-Kanda! Wh-" Allen looked at what he was sitting in carefully. "...A coal bunker?"

"A coal bunker."

"I see." Allen nodded and moved up as Kanda hoped in after him. "And why are we in a coal bunker?"

Kanda spoke the next word with an air of disapproval, closing the lid to the large container and sulking a little. "Hiding. If you hadn't noticed, bean sprout, we're a bit lost. You know, just a tad-"

"I get it."

Allen smiled, leaning next to the cold metal, breaking the lumps of coal apart in his fingers. So dark. So thick. And suddenly he really was buried in it.

"Stop grinning. What are you so happy about?" Kanda snapped. "You're bleeding half to death."

Allen chuckled again.

So cold one second. Why in the next was he burning?


End file.
